Another hard luck weekend for me. I arrived in the stand about 6:15 a.m. Saturday morning and around 7:15 I started hearing a couple of deer moving behind me. They slowly crossed a saddle to my left and walked down the trail straight toward me. At about 20 yards out they stopped and milled around. I was about 2-3 minutes away from having enough shooting light to put a good shot on them. Then I heard what I thought was a third deer coming from another direction straight toward the two. As it got closer the walking became trotting, which then became a run. I was hoping it was a good buck coming in to check out two does and that shooting light would get here quick. I got the gun up and ready and was trying to pick up the buck in my scope when I saw that it was a good-sized coyote coming in for my two does. Before I could react, the deer busted out of there with the coyote on their heels. No shot and no other sightings the rest of the day.

My long season is getting longer by the day, and I am considering hanging up the deer gear in exchange for my predator call and coyote rifle. It has been a rough one for me.

How did it go for you guys?

Darren Johnson
Internet Pro Staff Member - Indiana

Glad to talk to all of you, but I'd rather be sitting in a tree stand on a cool morning trying not to move so that the bruiser buck directly below me doesn't figure out that I am watching him!

Gun season started out pretty slow for me here in Fulton and Marshall counties. I sat all day in the woods on opening day and I saw nothing but squirrels. The 70 degree temps were the culprit I believe. I didn't hunt Sun,Mon, & Tues as I was gone to Wisconsin. I saw 7 deer at my place on Wed and 2 on Thurs but all too far off. The second Sat I saw 22 doe and one buck but they were all par 3's. Monday the 23rd I had a buck run 12 does across our cornfield and I dropped 2 of the does. I went out some after that but things got pretty slow towards the last weekend. The 2 does along with my archery buck will keep me in venison until next years season. I will be going out with the ML this coming weekend to help my neighbor thin out some does.

In terms of buck activity, it seemed to be a little suppressed this year in my area. I hunt in Grant county and most of the corn is still standing in the field. For the most part, I didn't see many mature bucks. I did some several younger bucks but not a lot of chasing from the older deer. I wonder how much the standing corn affected the breeding. Seems as if the '2nd rut' could be interesting. I would love to hear others comments on this.

We, me and two sons, ended up shooting one nice sized button last Sunday. We were out again Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning. We saw 6 buttons/does up til about 11 am just before the rain set in Sunday.

When I went back through my journal overall deer sightings were down about 50% compared to last two years. Bucks I would consider shooting (and my standards are low) were down about the same. I saw just three nice sized bucks. One was in the WOW class and that was opening weekend, and where did he disapear to, right back into a sea of standing corn.

This year we had several hundred acres within a mile radius where we hunt throughout firearms. The combines were at it when weather was nice (a little too nice) and as more and more corn slowly came off we saw more and more deer getting concentrated back into the woods. We still have 200 acres of corn left going into Muzzleloader so we will see how this starts to stack up. I have two other cousins who hunt and both had similar stories. It was difficult to locate the does with all the standing corn.

In general my all day sits were unproductive. The unseasonable warm weahter we had through the opening part of firearms put the deer back into a summer time pattern of moving only in the AM and agin right at dusk. This did not start to change for us until the weather got a little more cooler. Then we saw deer in the day moving.

Having said all that (gotta love excuses) I had my opportunities during bow to take another decent buck and choked. I had another opportunity to take a spike opening morning of firearms and, ummm, choked again. So we all came out of firearms safe and sound and we got out a lot and for once was not freezing our behinds off. Gotta be silver lining somewhere!

I didnt hunt a whole lot during firearms.. Maybe 4 times? I didnt really want to buy the firearms tag cause i have an extra archery tag and a bonus antlerless tag to fill and where im hunting you cant even take a bonus antlerless with a firearm during firearms.. So i hunted with bow and never got any chances at deer. Most the deer i saw i had jumped up from beds. I'm pretty confident i can fill the bonus tag during muzzleloader so im looking forward to that and then ill keep my fingers crossed for a buck with the extra archery, but id love to get another doe too. 3 does would keep the freezer full til next season.. Thatd be great

One does not hunt in order to kill, but one kills in order to have hunted.

I managed to get an averaged sized Doe during firearms season, I got a buck during the first week of bow. My two sons and my one grandson each got bucks on the opening day of firearms season. I was sitting with my granson in a 17' two man ladder stand when a nice fat 5 point came out of the brush at about 40 yards. My grandson was patient and put a perfect double lung shot on the deer with his Handi .357 Mag rifle. The buck went about 40 yards and dropped. I went hunting by myself the day after Thanksgiving and managed to shoot a coyote, a first for me. I will be going after another big Doe during muzzleloader season and maybe even try to get another coyote. It has been a good season so far and look forward to hunting while there is snow on the ground.....

We had the best opening weekend ever in Franklin County. On the second day, (Nov. 15) my hunting partner and I each scored our biggest bucks yet, within 2 hours of each other. He took a 142 inch main framed 10 pointer and I took a 152 inch main framed 10 pointer...both deer had small kickers making them 11 pointers. Indiana keeps getting better and better.

Gun season started out pretty slow for me here in Fulton and Marshall counties. I sat all day in the woods on opening day and I saw nothing but squirrels. The 70 degree temps were the culprit I believe. I didn't hunt Sun,Mon, & Tues as I was gone to Wisconsin. I saw 7 deer at my place on Wed and 2 on Thurs but all too far off. The second Sat I saw 22 doe and one buck but they were all par 3's. Monday the 23rd I had a buck run 12 does across our cornfield and I dropped 2 of the does. I went out some after that but things got pretty slow towards the last weekend. The 2 does along with my archery buck will keep me in venison until next years season. I will be going out with the ML this coming weekend to help my neighbor thin out some does.

I hunted in Fulton County on opening weekend and saw lots of deer. I saw a monster 12 pointer chasing a doe and watched 8 pointer tend a doe, I saw a couple of 4 pointers and a few does (missed one).